Chapter Three: Futuristic
Gage's eyes were fully closed now, his breathing deeper as his heart rate strengthened and steadied under the influence of the cordrazine and much-needed pseudoheme. Scanning him again, Bashir found him just at the border between unconsciousness and true sleep. He nodded in satisfaction, deciding against further medication for now.
"I have him stabilized," he told his anxious audience, "so it's time to take a look and see how bad those wounds are."
Carefully folding the blanket back, he removed the light dressing from Gage's chest and found that his imagination had not exaggerated the damage a bear's claws could do. The five gashes on the right side of Gage's chest and upper abdomen were gaping and ugly; while they no longer seemed to be bleeding, Dr Bashir had no need of his tricorder to spot the beginning stages of infection.
On the left side, a palm-sized flap of skin and muscle appeared to have been completely torn away. Put back inexpertly by someone who likely wanted the unpleasant task over as soon as possible, the left side was gapped open and oozing blood while the right side overlapped the edge of the wound.
And yet judging from the blood-soaked pad Dr Bashir could just see on Gage's right hip, the chest might not even be the worst injury.
He readjusted the blanket, unconcerned about getting blood on it from the unbandaged wounds, and removed a dressing heavy with blood and pus.
He whistled softly when he saw the mangled mess underneath. "Looks like it used him as a chew toy," he remarked in awed tones, forcing aside the memory of how close those teeth had come to his own limbs.
He scanned the injury, assessing the depth of the damage to the tissues, before folding the blanket back a little further and feeling the glands in Gage's groin.
"There's a lot of damage to the muscle," he remarked, "but it seems to have missed any internal organs, and all the infection is still limited to the wounds themselves. It all looks pretty messy, but I shouldn't have a problem patching it up." As he spoke, he injected another dose of antibiotic alongside the injury, this one meant to combat the infection already there, while what he had given earlier had been to ward off wide-spread sepsis.
As he took the delta wave inducer from the medkit, he felt more than saw or heard Walker come to stand behind him.
"What is that?" Walker questioned, an edge in his voice that went beyond idle curiously.
So this was it, Bashir realized; the suspicion he had been expecting with the tricorder…the hypospray…the blood analysis unit. He could have used anesthetic drugs, he supposed, but the inducer was far safer when the patient was still coming out of shock. And it was better to deal with the questions now than when he was in the middle of a surgical procedure with laser scalpels or muscle regenerators… He wondered briefly if it was the sight of the device that had started Walker wondering, or his own statement that he could repair the wounds, rather than simply bandaging them properly until they could get Gage to a hospital.
"Delta wave inducer," he answered in a low voice. "It will put him to sleep…I don't want to chance him being far enough under on his own."
"Just where do you work, Doctor; an experimental facility?" There was definitely suspicion in the Ranger's voice now; if such a facility existed, it would surely be operating outside the limits of legality.
At least if he was arrested now, Bashir thought a little grimly, Gage was stable enough to hold out until help arrived from this time; subconsciously, maybe that was even why Walker had waited until now to question.
"No," he replied evenly. "I'm…from the future. And I assure you, all my equipment and drugs have been thoroughly tested and approved by the foremost medical authorities of my time."
Trivette gave a snort of laughter. "The future?" he asked in disbelief.
"I believe him," Walker said quietly, making Bashir blink in surprise at his instant acceptance. "He's obviously not lying about being a doctor; why should he lie about where…or when…he's from?"
"Oh, come on, Walker; next you'll be telling me you believe in little green men!"
The corner of Bashir's mouth twitched as he hid a smile; the stereotypical "little green men" were just about the only lifeform that hadn't yet been encountered.
"Do you know they don't exist?" Walker returned, obviously teasing his friend now.
"Well, no, but —"
Walker turned to Bashir, his eyes twinkling. "How about it, Doctor; has alien life been discovered yet in your time?"
"Actually, I'm not permitted to tell you that, sir," Bashir responded seriously. "I'm going against my time's regulations just by telling you when I'm from — and especially by doing anything to change what happens in this time." His glance at Gage left no doubt in the others' minds as to what he was referring.
"But you did it anyway," Sydney whispered.
"Yes. As a doctor, I have a directive to obey that goes back a lot farther than Starfleet's Prime Directive or the Department of Temporal Regulations."
Next chapter coming next week!
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